


Homework, Houseguests, and Happiness

by Fushigi Kismet (tokyofish), tokyofish



Series: Other Side of Ordinary [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-17
Updated: 2005-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-10 05:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyofish/pseuds/Fushigi%20Kismet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyofish/pseuds/tokyofish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuzu needs some motivation to finish her summer math homework when a guest arrives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homework, Houseguests, and Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> Bleach is © Kubo Tite, Viz Media, Studio Pierrot, Shueisha, etc. This is a nonprofit fanwork.
> 
> Takes place in alternate storyline that branches off from canon post-Chapter 181.

It was the last day of summer vacation, sunny and warm, and she was inside, glaring irritably at the last of her summer homework.

Karin was plopped in front of the television with an array of junk food, her dirty sneakers piled clumsily at the door where she’d stepped out of them ten minutes before, right next to the gym bag she had dropped with a sigh as though it were full of lead weights instead of a soccer ball and a couple changes of clothes.

“Karin, will you put your bag away?” Yuzu said, doodling a flower in the margins of her textbook.

“In a minute,” Karin said, munching on a handful of chips. “They’re just getting to the good part!”

“What’re you watching?” Yuzu asked, glancing over her shoulder despite herself.

“F-1.”

Sorry she asked, Yuzu turned back to her work. “Don’t they keep driving around for hours?”

“Well,” Karin hedged, feeling far too comfortable half-embedded in the sofa as she was, “there’s a 007 movie I’m kind of watching too.”

“Soon, please?”

“Sheesh,” her older sister said, getting to her feet and heading towards the door. “I know you wouldn’t be so cranky if you’d finished your work at the beginning of vacation like I said to.”

“I am not cranky,” Yuzu replied stiffly, biting her lower lip and feeling very cranky indeed. It wasn’t her fault the Yumi and Megumi had wanted to go shopping, and that there’d been that bit of embroidery she’d wanted to get done, and Hanako had thrown a birthday party, and Daddy had begged her to darn his socks and . . . just where had vacation gone, anyway? “I’m just not good at math like you are. And Ichi-nii’s not here to help me.”

Karin made a face. “I’m not good at math either. I just sat there the first week and worked at it until I had answers for everything, is all. And Ichi-nii’s probably forgotten all this basic stuff with his quantum trigonometry calculus whatsit or whatever they teach you in high school anyway.”

Yuzu rolled her eyes.

“Well, anyway,” her sister said hastily, trying a different tack, “it’s the last day of vacation - you should enjoy it. Well, what's left of it. I already went swimming and played soccer AND frisbee and you’ve been sitting here all day being grumpy. Just copy mine,” was the sage bit of advice she gave, slinging the bag over her shoulder.

“Can’t,” Yuzu said resignedly.

“You don’t have to be _that_ much of a goody-two-shoes. I don’t care. It’s only busywork,” Karin called, going up the stairs.

“That’s not why!” Yuzu exclaimed, turning around in her chair, even though she usually _was_ that much of goody-two-shoes, but Karin had disappeared upstairs. “It’s because . . .” She sat back down and said quietly to herself, “It’s because I did so bad on the last exam that she gave me extra problems.” She was really getting the feeling that her teacher didn’t like her and Yuzu was used to being coddled. She’d always been a bit of a pet, but no one had begrudged her that since she was cute and friendly and got along with everyone - not to mention Karin got that particular glint in her eye whenever she heard anyone badmouthing her little sister - so it was really disconcerting for her to discover that the real world could be quite a bit more arbitrarily mean than she’d believed it to be. Well, not that she hadn’t known it already, but she’d accepted her mother’s death as more of a . . . natural catastrophe. Devastating and world-altering, but a pain she had shared with the rest of the family. This was something completely different.

Before she could brood more on it the doorbell rang and she sprang to her feet to answer. She hoped it was Ichi-nii and Ruki-nee back from grocery shopping, but he wouldn’t need to ring the bell because he never forgot his keys so maybe a delivery?

Well, whoever it was, it was a good excuse to put off doing her impossible math for a little bit longer and she lost no time in opening the door.

After she had she almost wished she could take it back. Standing on the doorstep was a tall redheaded man with tattooed eyebrows and a grim expression.

“Um, may I help you?” Yuzu squeaked.

The man opened his mouth and by the curl of his lip Yuzu was rather afraid of what he was going to say, but at that exact moment Rukia shouldered past him with her arms full of grocery bags and said, “Move, Renji!”

He moved meekly to one side, only to be shoved forward by Ichigo, his arms likewise full of groceries, who repeated, in tones identical to that of his girlfriend, “Would you get out of the way?!”

The man named Renji opened his mouth to argue, Rukia shot him a look, and his face twisted into a grimace but whatever he had been going to say never materialized.

Karin had a theory that Rukia was really the secret daughter of the head of a yakuza family, but Yuzu had never had cause to think of it as anything more than idle speculation . . . until now.

“Hello, Yuzu-chan,” Rukia said cheerfully, making her way to the kitchen. “That scary-looking individual there is Abarai Renji, a childhood friend of mine who followed us home after we bumped into him outside of the supermarket.”

“Oh,” Yuzu said, neurons firing rapidly, _definitely_ Yakuza - how _cool_ , and turned to smile at the newcomer, “pleased to meet you, Abarai-san.”

“Don’t get too close to him,” Ichigo said, trailing in Rukia’s wake. “He hasn’t gotten his shots yet.”

Renji directed a murderous look at Ichigo and opened his mouth the say something, but Rukia shot him another look. Shutting his mouth, he then turned to look at Yuzu and said, grumpily, “Who’re you?”

“My little sister,” Ichigo called over his shoulder.

“Kurosaki Yuzu,” Yuzu said politely.

“Huh,” was Renji’s only response.

Pounding sounded on the stairs and Karin appeared. “Hey, Ichi-nii, you’re ba-” before stopping short to eye the individual standing in their living room.

“This is Abarai Renji-san,” Yuzu said hastily before Karin decided he was a dangerous individual and as such gave him a taste of the family uh, _greeting_ that such individuals prompted, “Ruki-nee’s childhood friend.”

“Oh,” Karin said, and Yuzu could see that Karin’s mental processes were blazing along even faster than hers had a moment ago, “hi. I’m Kurosaki Karin.”

Renji didn’t seem to have any response to that. In fact, he didn’t seem to know how to react to the appearance of yet another Kurosaki.

“Yuzu, Karin, come help unpack the groceries,” Ichigo said.

“Yuzu has to do her summer homework,” Karin said mildly.

“Then _you_ come!”

“Yeah, yeah.” She walked over and fished out a package of tofu followed by one of frozen fishballs from one of the bags. “You remembered to pick up more laundry detergent, right? I just used the last of it.”

Ichigo frowned. “I would have if Renji hadn’t shown up.” Renji made what sounded like a snarling noise, and Rukia chucked an orange at Ichigo’s head. It missed as he automatically tilted his head to one side and reached up a hand to catch the flying edible projectile.

Karin’s expression was unimpressed as she held out her hand.

Muttering all the while, her older brother dropped the orange into her hand. She let it roll onto the counter and stuck her hand out again as he pulled out his wallet and deposited it in her waiting palm. “Don’t go crazy now,” he warned her.

She shrugged and pocketed the wallet. “Anything else you forgot?”

“Don’t think so.”

“’Kay, I’ll be back in a bit.” She walked out past Yuzu and Renji with a stern, “Get your homework done before dinner,” directed Yuzu’s way before going out the door.

Yuzu sighed, company momentarily forgotten, and slumped back down in her seat to look at her unfinished homework.

Renji sat down across from her for lack of anything else to do since Ichigo and Rukia seemed occupied with the task of taking out different colored and shaped packages and putting them in cabinets.

Yuzu sighed again, and Renji said, “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t understand this summer homework.”

“What?” he said, snatching the paper out of her hands. “Math, huh? Oh, this stuff’s easy.”

“Really?” Yuzu said, glancing at the paper in his hands as though hoping all of the answers had magically appeared.

He glanced down at her, this kid with Kurosaki’s name and nothing else at all of him about her and was reminded of other children he had known growing up, snot-nosed and bad at math, all of them. Well, the girls had clean noses for the most part.

“It’s really simple, kid,” he said, laying the paper down and picking up a pencil. After staring dubiously at it for a moment and poking with his finger at the teddy bear eraser, he began scribbling something on the paper. “Just pretend that . . .”

 

“What is Renji doing?” Ichigo asked, glancing over at the corner where Yuzu and Renji were huddled over a piece of paper, each holding a pencil.

Rukia took a quick look as she unpacked the groceries. “Math. He taught me, you know.”

“Yuzu’s going to fail, isn’t she?” Ichigo said accusatorily, picking up a can and placing it on the top shelf for her.

She elbowed him in the gut and said sweetly, “I’ve seen Yuzu and Karin’s homework. Even _I_ can do that level of math. You need geometry sometimes in demon arts, you know.”

“You don’t say,” Ichigo said, rubbing at his middle, and pulling out a package of rice noodles. “Damn, you’ve got bony elbows!”

She whirled with a bag of potatoes and trod neatly over his foot.

“That didn’t hurt,” he said dryly. “You’re not heavy enough to - Ow, dammit!”

She smirked, swinging the bag of potatoes leisurely with one hand. “Do you want me to get you an ice pack for that eye?”

Ichigo took that as a belated cue to stop talking and unpack the groceries faster before she got an open shot at his _other_ eye.

 

This was easy, Yuzu thought incredulously, watching as Renji rapidly worked his way through the problems. "Is _that_ how you do it?" she asked.

"Yeah, just like that," he said, sliding the paper over to her. "Do the next one the same way." She bent down over the paper, pencil moving carefully over the surface, her eyes alternating between his example and her problem. Renji glanced at the top of the light colored head then over to where Rukia and Ichigo were arguing in the kitchen and quickly back.

"Done!" Yuzu said happily, holding the paper up for his inspection. "Did I do it right?"

He took it from her and went over her work. "Yeah," he said, finally, resting his hand on her head and absently ruffling her hair. "You got it."

She made an "eep" noise and he looked down at her and realized that this wasn't Rukia or Hinamori or anyone else familiar. This was Kurosaki's sister. "Here," he said, thrusting the paper at her and removing his hand. "Do the rest of the set."

"Okay," she said, brushing hair out of her brown eyes and smoothing it down. "Then after that will you show me how to do the next set?"

Wondering how he'd gotten stuck tutoring little girls at this late date, he said, "Yeah, okay."

She smiled and turned almost cheerfully to the math. Abarai-san was actually really smart and his explanations were very clear. She had gone from thinking of him as "slightly scary" to "secretly nice," just like her brother. He just didn't want people to know. Yuzu found that endearing and wondered if all Yakuza were like that? It was sort of romantic to think so, but it probably wasn't true. Abarai-san was just _different_.

The math was coming easily to her now. Boy, wouldn't her teacher be surprised? She bet she could finish the rest of her homework in an hour.

It actually took her forty-five minutes and that was counting the time it took her to welcome Karin back. Her sister waved vaguely at her and seemed a little distracted.

"What took you so long?" Ichigo said as she came in.

Karin tossed Ichigo his wallet and replied, "Bumped into Chad at the supermarket and we got to talking. He says hi."

"What?" her brother said, bewildered. "Why? I'm going to see him in school tomorrow."

"Don't ask _me_ ," Karin said irritably. "He's _your_ friend." The laundry detergent thumped as she dragged it up the stairs.

Rukia strode into the room and poked him. He reflexively caught her fingers to keep her from causing more damage to his internal organs. "What do you want for dinner, Ichigo?"

He was still muttering about Chad being weird, but stopped short as her words sunk in. "Is it Sunday already?"

"Yes, it is," she said, her words dripping with dangerously saccharine sweetness as she tied on the apron Yuzu had bought her last Christmas.

"Uh," he said, "that thing . . . The one I liked last time."

She crossed her arms. "What thing?"

"You know, that . . . European thing with the meat and the cheese. It was round?"

"Ah," she said, brightening. "Impossible Cheeseburger pie? I found a new recipe for that the other day!"

"What was wrong with the old recipe?" he asked a trifle desperately.

"Nothing, but isn't it good to experiment?"

As they launched into an argument of the merits of the same-old versus the new-and-untested-and-potentially-poisonous, Yuzu finished her last math problem and felt a great weight fall from her shoulders as she stretched. "Ah, finished!"

She looked over at Renji who was scowling and said, "Thank you so much, Abarai-san!"

He kind of blinked and looked at her. "You're done?"

She nodded.

Finally, he thought. Now he wouldn't have that vague sense of guilt haunting him when he left. "Well, I'd better be heading out."

"-and your father will be back soon," Rukia was saying, gesturing with a ladle that she had acquired at some point in the conversation. She stopped to look at Renji who had gotten to his feet after putting down the pencil he'd borrowed from Yuzu with one more skeptical look at the teddy bear eraser. "You're not going already, Renji?"

"Yeah, uh, I thought I'd head out."

"What?" Rukia said, genuinely appalled. "But it's almost time for dinner!"

She gave Ichigo a Look and he sighed, rubbed the back of his head, and said in a tone born of much suffering, "Aren't you staying for dinner, Renji?"

Renji took one look at the domestic scene of Ichigo, Rukia, Yuzu, Karin who had just trudged back down the stairs, and the promise of Ichigo's father on the way and thought he'd rather have all his teeth pulled. At once. By Zaraki Kenpachi. What he said was: "Hell no."

"Fine." Duty done, Ichigo turned away.

"Renji," Rukia said meaningfully, slapping her ladle against her other hand as he started backing towards the door, "don’t you want to taste the _delicious_ dinner yours truly is preparing for tonight?"

"Run, Renji," Ichigo offered in a meaningful aside.

Rukia whacked him over the head with her ladle.

"OW, WHAT THE HELL!" he yelled, clutching his head with one hand and the offending ladle in the other. Rukia pulled on her end of the ladle and Ichigo pulled back. Yuzu took this daily occurrence as her cue to run towards the door, calling out, "I'll see Abarai-san out!"

Renji was already halfway down the block before she caught up. He stopped, hearing her call his name, and watched as she slowed to a stop behind him and bent over. "You okay?"

She held up a hand and breathed in and out a few times. "You sure walk fast, Abarai-san."

He swallowed a cutting remark and shrugged his shoulders instead. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh," Yuzu said, straightening, one hand over her middle, "I just thought I'd make sure you didn't get lost. The roads back here are a little tricky and I know you've never been to our house before, so . . ."

If had been anyone else he might have taken offense, but she was looking at him with such a goddamn _earnest_ expression. She was a lot like Hinamori that way. It was a little nostalgic.

She fidgeted. "Am I being a bother?"

"No," he said after a moment and looked away. "Lead me to a main street or whatever."

"Okay," was her cheerful reply. "I'll take you to the road the supermarket's on!"

He watched her walking slightly ahead of him, small and quick-footed, arms swinging, and thought that Rukia had been that young once. Hell, he had been that young once. It seemed absurd.

"So do you go to school with Ichi-nii and Ruki-nee?" she asked, looking at him a little curiously.

"Ah," he hedged, scratching the bridge of his nose.

"But you're Ruki-nee's childhood friend," she said suddenly, "and she's from out in the country so probably not, right? Um, thanks again for helping me with the math homework, Abarai-san! I was really having trouble."

"Sure," he said lamely. He wasn't used to gratitude. It made him uncomfortable to be on the receiving end.

"I mean normally I would ask Ichi-nii but he's been really busy lately."

"I'll bet," Renji muttered.

"Do you and Ichi-nii not get along?"

He looked at her wide-eyed expression and realized he had neglected to suppress his usual scowl at the mention of Ichigo's name. "No," he said hastily, "it's not that we don't get along-"

"I'm sorry," Yuzu said, turning and bowing in his direction. She looked up as she straightened. "I shouldn't have asked. It's none of my business. Karin says I'm always being too nosy and people won't like it. Plus you're Ruki-nee's friend an-"

"We get along fine," Renji interjected. "For the most part."

"Oh." She offered him a small, shy smile, surprised by how relieved she felt. "Oh, good."

Huh, he thought. Nothing like Kurosaki at all.

"Do I talk too much?" she asked him next as they resumed walking. She felt like she was babbling a mile a minute. It must be really annoying for him to have to listen to her. "Just let me know. I can be quiet. Really."

"It's fine," Renji said. He was used to girls chattering at him. There was usually more yelling and kicking involved, though.

He really was too nice. "You should've stayed for dinner. I kind of monopolized you and I'm sure Rukia-nee would have liked to have talked to you more. And don't mind my brother, Rukia-nee's cooking is really improving."

"Really," Renji said, in the tone of someone who didn't believe that at all.

"Uh-huh. I mean her Japanese food is fine, it's just her Western food that needs a little work. I've been teaching her. It's been a lot of fun!"

"You cook?" He raised an eyebrow at that. Well, it made more sense than a whole family full of people trying to live off of Rukia's cooking.

She nodded. "I usually make dinner. You should come by again sometime, Abarai-san, and I'll cook you something as a thank you. What kind of food do you like?"

"Anything Rukia's not cooking," he said. "I've tried her soup." He had been having _nightmares_ about her soup ever since they'd been kids.

Yuzu laughed despite herself. "She's really pretty good now!"

"Uh-huh."

"Geez," she said, pouting. "Ruki-nee will be mad at me for not straightening you out."

He seriously doubted that. "Tell her to be mad at me instead." Renji grinned at her. "I'm used to it. It's no good for her to be mad at a kid like you."

"She's mad at Ichi-nii all the time," Yuzu said, her heart skipping a beat at his smile. It was enough to make her stoutly ignore the fact that he had just called her a kid when she was about to turn thirteen already. "They fight all the time too."

"Yeah, well." He smirked, wondering how much hell Rukia gave him on a daily basis. "That's to be expected."

"But I think they really must love each other," she continued, "because they can never stay mad at each other for long."

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Maybe."

Oh no, Yuzu thought, upset, somehow I've said entirely the wrong thing.

He looked in her direction and must have noticed her distress because he said suddenly, "You have some time before dinner, right? Want to show me around? I have some time to kill."

"Sure," she said, thinking that he probably had to catch a late train. Abarai-san was so nice trying to making her feel better about saying all the wrong things to him. "Where do you want to go?"

 

It turned out Renji had no idea and Yuzu racked her brains for someplace that wasn't the mall, the toy store, the playground, or Urahara's Shop (because Karin said that boy Jinta maybe liked her and Yuzu didn't know how she felt about _that_ ) and was close enough that she could make it back in time for dinner. They ended up at her junior high school.

"I'm sorry," Yuzu said miserably. "I couldn't think of anywhere interesting."

"No," Renji said, looking around. "Here's fine."

"Really?"

"Yeah." At least it was someplace quiet. He walked over to the nearest big tree and sat down under it. The soccer field and the river stretched away below them and as Yuzu sat down next to him, she thought, maybe it hadn't been an accident that she'd brought him here. She'd always found the view to be very pretty.

"Um, Abarai-san?"

He a noise that wasn't quite a grunt which Yuzu took to mean she should continue. Ichi-nii was like that too sometimes.

"I'm sorry you had to spend all this time walking with me. Maybe Ichi-nii should've taken you back? I was probably a bother after all, huh?"

“Don't worry about it," he said gruffly. "You’re a whole lot better company than your bast-idiot of a brother, anyway. Cuter too."

She stared at her hands clasped in front of her and felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Then she glanced surreptitiously over at him and traced his profile with her eyes.

Yuzu was sure that she would love Abarai Renji forever.


End file.
